Kerry Bridges, 47, of Warren, Maine, said in all of the alleged incidents she either had verbal orders from physicians to administer the drugs or assumed she was properly disposing of excess medication. He kept a trained eye on one registered nurse who was suspected of stealing hydromorphone, an opioid pain medication, for her personal use. Posted in Registered Nurses, THE PROBLEM OF FALSE AND MISLEADING ACCUSATIONS AGAINST MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS. It takes 14 hours to negotiate an Accusation or 20.5 for a Hearing. This seems crazy because if you are being accused of diverting meds, wouldnt the employer want to prove that those medications were in your system? Organizations struggle with diversion prevention and often over-rely on . At this point, Leon knew exactly what was going on, and watched with increasing alarm as the nurse headed to a patients room in the orthopedic area of the hospital. Bridges testified that she was never once questioned by hospital officials about the discrepancies or given the chance to submit to a drug test. Its just a question of whether you know it or not.. Do I really need to fill out the form? I counsel them on whats substantial because the language is very loose.. This may be the case with some law firms, but it is not the case with us. Find out your top seven security news stories, delivered to your inbox weekly, and powered by ASIS International. Nurses have emotional attachments to patients that they see die. The doctor went to properly treat the patient and Leon called the nurse manager and the local sheriffs detective in to begin an official investigation into the nurses actions. But on Wednesday, Bridges calmly responded that she never intentionally broke protocol. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 1-612-816-8773. allnurses Copyright allnurses.com LLC. The patient was still screaming in pain and the doctor was frantically asking the nurse, Are you sure you got the right dosage? Our mission is to Empower, Unite, and Advance every nurse, student, and educator. Expectations Are Changing]. In another, Bridges said that her patient, a man with cancer, had been taking high doses of morphine at home and was at risk of going through withdrawals while he waited for hours for a bed in the main part of the hospital. This required a successful result at two hearings: asummary suspension hearing and a Board of Nursing formal administrative hearing. Recommended Stories Reuters Anger in. If somebody wants to steal or becomes addicted, they are going to find a way to do it, and sooner or later they are going to get caught, but then theres a problem because the hospital has to work backwards to determine how much was stolen and reconcile all that, he says. Think real hard about the names you put down for references. Author, "Your Last Nursing Class: How to Land Your First Nursing Job"and your next! 1 Article; This is a horrible catch 22 in which to find yourself because you are faced with only 2 outcomes as the BRN sees it: 1.) Protect it! They pull out meds and "hold" them or document as given but take them themselves or take them home. contemporary art in region 7 brainly; marc klopp instagram. A Georgia man who was busted for shoplifting at a Walmart found himself in even more trouble when officers found 37 pounds of marijuana in his trunk, according to the Morgan Citizen. Did your manager write you up for this.. or simply make you aware that you cannot walk around with a narc in your pocket? . This act is illegal and opens up offenders to criminal prosecution, including those related to felony charges. Should the false accusation take a turn and your employer believes the false statement, you could have a case for a defamation lawsuit. Dear Falsely Accused, So basically you were falsely accused of diverting drugs and terminated for "documenting issues". Department of Justice investigator Mark Myrdek (left) sits on the stand. Our mission is to Empower, Unite, and Advance every nurse, student, and educator. Very understaffed working place. Cichon cautions that some hospitals hoping to avoid bad press and DEA scrutiny may look for loopholes. Our policy here (and I believe this comes from state regulation) is that controlled meds have to be given within 30 minutes of being pulled. I am a physician who has been falsely accused of drug diversion, given mandatory fmla and inpatient addiction evaluation versus being fired. If you did divert, only you can decide if the BRNs Diversion or Intervention is right for you. Has 14 years experience. Has 13 years experience. Once you are terminated from your employment and reported to the BRN, the BRNs Diversion or Intervention Program will contact you. They are under a lot of pressure to catch instances of diversion, and repeatedly pulling a narc an hour of more before you give it is a definite red flag. The . Take the extra 5 minutes to pull med school per policy. You need to change yesterday. It takes about 4-6 months for a BRN investigator to contact you. While street drugs remain popular, an influx of new prescription pain medications in the late 1990s helped to fuel an opioid epidemic that killed 50,000 Americans in 2019 alone. We found out through the course of investigations that if someone resigns and was not sanctioned it may not be a reportable action, he says. Need Your Opinion About Medical Emergency. The employer also may be named in the defamation suit under the theory of Respondeat superior. We are often contacted by nurses falsely accused of diverting narcotics, abusing narcotics, or stealing narcotics from patients. Today a woman from the finnish customs called me saying its narcotics, she asked me if it was me who ordered the narcotics saying that that way i wont get into much trouble and it will be easier but if i deny ordering them i would have to go to the police station for a court hearing so they can get my statement and decide what to do. No accusations from patients. Virtually every healthcare practitioner has seen a colleague fired or disciplined after being accused of diverting drugs or misusing their prescription pad. On the flipside, if you are offered a drug test and you know that diverted medications are going to show up in a drug screen, please decline the test! Change your ways!! I hate to tell you, but if you have controlled substances and dispense narcotics, youve got diversion going on, says Cherie Mitchell, president of drug diversion software company HelioMetrics. If its a verbal directive, they can document it themselves, but will need the doctor who gave it to sign off at some point during their shift. Please Note: The statements and information provided on this website are for informational purposes only. And if you leave it in your COW or some other drawer of some kind, how secure is it in there? 13,952 Posts. Our fees are flat, so there are never any surprises and never any additional fees to us. If youre both ordering and putting away drugs, thats a bad thing because you can order six bottles when you only need five and keep one for yourself, Hayes notes. The people who are your real problem are the people who are hiding in the weeds, not doing enough to get caught, and those are the ones you want to find, Mitchell says. The closest estimates of drug diversion rates come from people or organizations who dig up the numbers themselves. However, they typically do not carry guns, wear uniforms or flash their badge. Healthcare providers are in very stressful jobs, Hayes says. Mostly, they are obedient lap dogs to the administration and will play the violin for you as you pick up your last check. Wholesalers can even stop the flow of medication to pharmacies if they believe diversion is occurringwhich can be disastrous to a trauma center, Hayes notes. Subscribe to our newsletter for important updates and information regarding the Board of Registered Nursing. Please spend some time reading the Diversion section of the blog, for more information. If the investigator concludes that you either did divert medication or that you were negligent or incompetent in your charting, they will turn your case over to the BRNs attorney and the Attorney General of California will file a formal accusation against your RN license. Disclaimer:This information is a sample of our past results. var tag_id = document.getElementById('buylinkBridgesTestimony-CM-051916,ph02'); If you were only warned, it sounds like your manager is trying to give you a gentle warning nudge to change your practice. Bottom line is do not talk about your case to them without a lawyer present. Happens to me all the time. Are you sure it was hydromorphone? and she was insisting she had, Leon says. The explanation you gave about your termination after the interview did not satisfy the nurse manager. By using the site you agree to our Privacy, Cookies, and Terms of Service Policies. Unless you haven't been completely forthcoming, then there's something shady going on. Illinois dentist accused of diverting patients' anesthesia drug for personal use Phillip Jensen, 61, was arrested Monday on eight counts of drug diversion, eight counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, one count of tampering with consumer products, and three counts of false statements related to health care matters. Your employer is a mandatory reporter, and regardless of how beloved you are, I can promise you that they are not going to put themselves on the line by not doing what they are required by law to do. Controlled substances were going missing at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), and the hospitals security investigator, William Leon, was determined to get to the bottom of it. Recently I applied and interviewed at an ER local to me here in Pa, the interview went fantastic and I was very excited. Just follow policy. This is something that is probably happening but were not finding it, he says. Healthcare Fraud Defense & Health Care Criminal Defense. So I moved on and applied for another ER position in a nearby town (in the same health system as the one in my town) and again received an email saying that they were not interested (I did not even get an interview). And one should not rely on a union rep to come to the rescue. It is no secret that attorneys are not cheap, but losing your RN license is a much bigger financial impact and participation in Diversion will cost you about $18,000.00 over the three or more years you are stuck in it. Three nurses indicted this week in Warren County are accused of stealing opioids from their patients for their own use, according to authorities. Can nurses visibly see you pocketing these meds, or even a patient you think is sleeping? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 52 people in the United States die every day from overdosing on prescription painkillers. This complaint / report initiates a disciplinary investigation. In one especially egregious case, a traveling medical technician with hepatitis C would inject himself with his patients fentanyl and refill the same syringe with saline, ultimately spreading the virus to at least 30 people in two states. Murphy, who worked for the DEA for 25 years, now helps companies follow mandates he calls vague and difficult to interpret. For example, DEA requires anyone carrying controlled substances to report the theft or significant loss of any controlled substance within one business day of discovery., This hospital had 13 vials of morphine that went missing and someone called me in to find out why, Hayes says. After an investigation into a diverter is opened, it is unclear what happens to the offender. Closing arguments are expected to follow. I have known a nurse who would fill the medication vial with normal saline after taking out the narcotics and injected the normal saline while injecting the drug im into herself. It is at this stage that your attorney gets to argue your case. Chapman Law Group has a team of attorneys skilled in representing licensed health professionals in state, federal, and administrative courts during trials and administrative hearings. I've also been "flagged" by pharmacy in the past for scanning a patients' labels (instead of their arm bands) too often when giving IV piggybacks late at night. Healthcare workers are not immune to the draw of opioids. If a 300-bed hospital is finding one person a month, and Hospital B has the same amount of staff and beds and is finding nothing, NADDI has been providing training for hospitals to develop antidiversion policies. They asked me, Are 13 vials substantial or not? Pharmacies. You have people that are already in very stressful situations, and now you give them access to drugs. Hayes says that she typically gathers evidence and gets a confession from diverters, at which point her client calls in law enforcement to arrest them. Your attorney can advise you about how best to handle this entire matter, including the false confession. Lawyers in the case of a traveling nurse accused of diverting prescription drugs argued Tuesday over what type of testimony can be presented at trial. Agreed with the above. If your employer believes that you were stealing medication especially if it was pharmaceutical meds, of course you can be fired for that - or any lawful reason. Susan Hayes has been a private detective for healthcare facilities for more than a decade and says the opioid epidemic has magnified the drug diversion problem in recent years. Bridges was accused of misconduct in 2014 by Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, but it was never raised Wednesday in court. Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical. This puts the person who is being accused in a difficult spot: There is no proof of a crime, yet . Toni Martin, 34, of . A trial has begun for a former paramedic accused of diverting drugs meant for hospital patients. you didnt. If we allow this person to resign rather than take action against him, then we dont have to report it.. Concord Monitor. If you are a registered nurse and have been recently accused of diverting medication, there are only 2 scenarios: 1.) I didn't take my stimulant the day of my follow-up because it was my day off, and I stupidly thought my doctor would prescribe me something else that same day. If you diverted only a few times, it may be hard to prove that it was in fact diversion and you may be treated as someone who just made a few medication errors. Your license is the single most valuable thing you have in your life. 14. I have been falsely accused of drug diversion. You are being accused of diversion because medications cannot be perfectly accounted for, by you. Maybe his prints are on the container in which the drugs were found. Allegations of diversion always stem from charting issues, always. We frequently defend nurses and doctors accused of diverting drugs. He tellsSecurity Managementthat he would call in a sheriffs detective to interview the suspect. She stresses the importance of constantly mixing up the personnel who order and stock medications. I have personally seen this. False accusations can cause a lingering sense of damage, or can push a relationship into a crisis. South African nurse wants to work in Canada. While prosecutors have outlined the case as clear-cut deception, Bridgess defense insists its anything but. A facility that identifies a diversion problem might bring in any combination of players, from private investigators and local law enforcement to state accreditation boards or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Once a drug is outside of the closed loop, when it gets dispensed from a pharmacy or administered by a doctor, its no longer in the purview of DEA rules and regulations, he explains. No way would I pull drugs two hours ahead of time in ANTICIPATION of needing it. You thought I just told you that Diversion was not a good choice, but its seeming pretty great to you now! Falsely accused for hit a teammate drug tested sent home 2hour after it happened This happened at a cross walk that the person was not in they was tat the pole I made a turn from a stopped position to park my order . Rather than return the med immediately, I hold onto it until they need it so I am prepared for the next time. Even if you did have a statistic, it would be off because how do you incorporate those so-called sloppy practicers, or diverters who thought they were about to get caught so they quit on you and left? Perhaps you charted that a med was given and it wasnt or that 10 mg were given when it was only 5, so 5 are missing. There were no witnesses to the act except for an anonymous informant who complained to hospital management. A traveling nurse accused of diverting drugs from Concord Hospital took the stand Wednesday on the penultimate day of her criminal trial, emphatically contesting the claims and suggesting she is the victim of one giant misunderstanding. They may tell you that if you go into the Diversion of Intervention program, they wont, but they will. I worked in an ER as an LPN from 2000-2007, graduated RN and began my RN career at the same ER in 2007 until I was terminated in 2009. Even then, I would only pull out what the doctor states to have at BS, and I know I have witnesses if he give a verbal order during the procedure for the med. Both of these options are violations of the Nurse Practice Act and cause for revocation of your RN license. Rate this book. Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development, Freelance Writer. Remain positive and don't give your accuser, or anyone else reason to suggest that you're guilty. If you are diverting medication you need to get help. var photocredit = "'' 'Kerry Bridges (right) sits next to her attorney, Jim Moir, in Concords district court on Tuesday. Has 10 years experience. Secondly, no matter how friendly, understanding or honest they may seem to be THEY ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS AND THEY ARE NOT ON YOUR SIDE! Not just security personnel should be involved with the diversion aspect, he says. So, calendar your case and appear in court. I was given a stack of charts and was told that I had failed to chart giving narcotics and failed to waste narcotics in the pyxis system, I was stunned as I could not believe the accusations. However, DEA does not get involved in every suspected case of diversion. Instead, they insist she was unfairly and haphazardly targeted, and that the case exposes the serious flaws of an emergency department that still depends on paper records and whose administrators dont realize how divergent policy and practice become in the rush of the job. Hayes details the path of drugs through a hospital: a pharmacy technician orders the medication from a wholesaler, who will deliver them to the hospital pharmacy. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Student Nurse Applicants with Past Convictions, Petition for Nursing License Reinstatement, Please spend some time reading the Diversion section of the blog, for more information. The Royals' New Family Photo Is Causing Major Drama Right Now. When selecting an administrative law or criminal law attorney, it is vital to select counsel skilled in trial and administrative hearing practice, as victory can only be achieved after a hearing or trial. There are medical boards, nursing boards, pharmacy boards, and not every worker even falls under some sort of licensing board for that state. . Chairperson of White Collar Defense & Government Investigations, Michigan Office1441 W. Long Lake Road, Suite 310Troy, MI 48098Phone:(248) 644-6326. There can also be false negatives because an opioid is simply prescribed in too low of a dose to be detected. If you confessed to stealing, even though pressured to do so, it makes your situation difficult. Leon observed the nurse dispense a syringe of hydromorphone from the medicine cabinet, and, while a fellow nurse was signing off on the withdrawal, she placed the syringe in her pocket and pulled out an identical syringe, which Leon later learned contained saline. Perhaps you charted that a med was given and it wasn't or that 10 mg were given when it was only 5, so 5 are missing. The nurse held up the saline syringe and wasted the required amount, tricking her fellow nurse, and left the room. House Beautiful. Specializes in Pediatrics, Rehab, Trauma. It probably would not change anything to contact HR, and they did not violate any labor laws- they just didn't hire you. I needed help, didnt know how to ask for it, and I was hoping somebody would stop me. Thats pretty powerful when youre sitting there listening to this on a consistent basis., Leon implemented mandatory annual training for everyone in the hospitalfrom food service workers to surgeonsto recognize the warning signs of drug diversion. Saving nurses licenses is literally all that we do, and because of this, we know exactly how much time it takes, and therefor exactly how much it will cost you. However, the protections that these laws provide - through protection from abuse (PFA) orders - are triggered immediately after someone claims that they are the victim of domestic violence. The nurse was terminated, referred to HPRP, and a complaint was lodged with theState of Michigan, Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA).